"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Which Democrats Work For Wall Street? Just Look At The Voting Records

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Mike Crapo's Senate bill to roll back a huge chunk of Dodd Frank passed the House Tuesday, 258-159. Only one Republican voted against it. 33 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans and give the Republicans-- and airhead media (see video above)-- an opportunity to call it "bipartisan." Before we look at the 33 Democrats, let 's take a quick look at what they voted for.The bill exempts all but the mega-bucks banks from most rules-- like the ability of banks to use consumer and business deposits for speculative investments, allowing banks to fund risky investments with deposits and, if their bets went bad, turn to federal deposit insurance to make good the losses-- put in place after the financial crisis to keep banks from failing. It was the biggest roll-back of Dodd Frank so far. The New York Times reported that "While the legislation offers little for the very largest banks, the Trump administration has already been working through the regulatory system to make things easier for them."Currently the rules impact banks with assets of $50 billion and above. After Trump signs the bill that will go up to $250 billion and above. Scrutiny will all but disappear for these "small" banks, just what the lobbyists have been aiming at. Elizabeth Warren: "These banks are back to making record profits, but Washington insists on doing them more favors, even if it means raising the risk of another bailout."The House Democrats voting with the Republicans on this were primarily from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs. These are the malefactors Tuesday:

There were some New Dems who voted against it-- many in tough 2018 election battles, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Colleen Hanabusa (HI), Beto O'Rourke (TX), Tony Cardenas (CA), Darren Soto (FL) and Jared Polis (CO).Tuesday night some people asked me why I was making such a big deal on Twitter of the fact that Amy McGrath beat Jim Gray, a Blue Dog, in Kentucky's 6th congressional district. It's because of votes like this. Jim Gray may not have taken a position on this particular vote but, as a Blue Dog, there can be little doubt how he would have voted on it-- and how he would vote on similar legislation in the future. That's why there were so many tweets like these:

And that's why I was so happy a week earlier when progressive Kara Eastman defeated Blue Dog Brad Ashford in Omaha and why I'm so happy when any Blue Dog or New Dem loses their primary. Despitehelp from the DCCC, many Blue Dogs have been losing their primaries this year. That's a good thing. These are the Blue Dogs who have primaries coming up:

Many people say, "well, they're better than the Republican." And, most of the time that's true-- though not on bills like the ones undermining Dodd Frank. And not when they're able to push the House Democrats right-ward (like they did when they killed the public option before it could ever get voted on). And many of them have hands as blood-soaked as Republicans when it comes to backing the NRA, particularly Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ) , Lauren Baer (FL) and Anthony Brindisi (NY). Anyway if you want to vote for the lesser of two evils in November, think about how awful New Dems and Blue Dogs are when you're voting during primaries. In Orange County, for example, you can vote for a proven progressive like Katie Porter or you can vote for a wretched New Dem like Dave Min. It shouldn't be too hard to figure that one out. Ann Kirkpatrick is running in Tuscon this time and she[s proven how horrible she is when she represented Flagstaff and she has two much better candidates running for the Tucson seat this time, Mary Matiella and Matt Heinz.

Looking at voting records, especially while the 'craps are irrelevant, will be misleading.

It's true that once a bill for the money is guaranteed to pass, many who would otherwise be servile to that money will vote against simply because they can. Or do you not understand how politics, pandering and so forth works in this shithole. It's only been this way forever...

Hey, we've got a female (torturer) as head of the CIA, so everything must be cool, right?

As long as the people who deny our health coverage, foreclose on our homes, mace/tase and shoot us, jail us, start our foreign interventions, etc. roughly the follow the demographic contours of the country, then everything's OK, isn't it?

Isn't that the logical conclusion to Identity Politics? Isn't that what "Leaning In" is all about? It doesn't cost the Overclass a nickel, and has broad public relations benefits... but demand a fifty-cent-an-hour raise in a restaurant or machine shop and, liberal or conservative, the claws come out...